Last year Richard Dawkins, a scientist and renowned atheist, wrote a book called “The God Delusion” which hit the best sellers lists at the end of the year. Well another Oxford Professor, well known Christian author and apologist, Alister McGrath has written a piece in the Daily Mail in response to Dawkins. Definitely worth a read.
Dawkins is pretty religious in his evangelistic fervour. He wants to convert all “faith-heads” to non-faith. He is dogmatic, certain, and pretty much like many of the religious believers (fundamentalists) he criticises. McGrath paints Dawkins as dogmatic, “immune to argument”, full of misunderstanding and unfair.
Scott McKnight has blogged his way through the book is you are really keen to find out what Dawkins is saying, but, like me, don’t want to put a single penny into his pocket by buying the book! There are 8 parts: one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight.
Related: A previous post: The Trouble with Atheism
HT: tallskinnykiwi, who has also blogged on The New Atheism.
Tags: Atheism, Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion
I agree with you that Dawkins is a fundamentalist - but he is still a person of faith and i worry that we as christians write him off without taking his critique seriously and responding in a positive way - it’s much easier labelling the guy than it is for me to change my behaviour…
if you’re interested i wrote my own take on the challenge of christians of the critique of new atheism here…
http://paulmayers.blogs.com/my.....ergin.html
Thanks Paul. Good provocation to respond with grace; I agree. His book was a bestseller, and many people agree with his conclusions even if they don’t agree with the bombastic way he presents them, so we would be foolish to write him off!
I do think he falls into the trap of comparing the best of atheism with the worst of faith. Easy to do, but not a fair comparison.
Thanks for the link … i read the post in my lurking days, but enjoyed reading the conversation in the comments section.
For anyone who wants to follow the link, the final part got cut off … so here it is again (in two parts) …
http://paulmayers.blogs.com/my_weblog/
2006/11/why_the_emergin.html
The response to Dawkins’ book, is The Dawkins Delusion, by McGrath himself. I’m looking forward to reading this!
Yes i saw that too Alastiar. I meant to mention in the post, so thanks for adding as a comment.
Also check out:
http://www.theresurgence.com/g.....s_delusion,
quite an amusing vid…
Enjoyed the video - thanks for the link alastair. I couldn’t shake the intervier sounding like William Hague though!!!!!
The idea that it’s somehow smart to refer to atheists using religious terminology is getting real old now. You’re confusing enthusiasm and passion for evangelism. Would you call Steve Jobs an evangelist, given the way he promotes Apple Inc? Some do, which tells you how useful a word that is today.
I have no idea how you can accuse Dawkins of “faith”, when he has explained the basis for his ideas in exhaustive detail, and happily admits his opinions are based on what he knows and could be wrong. Hardly a “faith” position, is it?
T
Brian - it may have been used before, but it still works for me. There are many similarities in Dawkins and some of the religious fundamentalists.
And whatever Dawkins believes, he wasn’t there, and he can’t prove it. It is theory. He can’t prove that there is no God, any more than I can prove there is one. In my book that is faith.
I haven’t read Dawkins but have seen him interviewed, and i see no speck on doubt in him: he is certain. I have never heard him admit that he is wrong … where have you got that from?